Chapter 4The Mind Hacker

I woke up feeling groggy. I couldn't remember my dreams, but one specific visual was burned into my mind.

I was in a dark, unfamiliar room, staring at a computer screen, editing a highly encrypted file.

The document title was "Rainey Woods Memory Extraction Progress".

I bolted upright in bed, grabbed my notebook, and read the entry from last night.

Seeing the photos on my phone brought the entire nightmare crashing back.

I called Maggie immediately. "Maggie, I need a massive favor. Dig up everything you can find on Erik's MIT research. Neural interfaces, memory extraction. Leave no stone unturned."

"What happened? You sound like you are about to have a panic attack."

"I saw him in the lab last night. He has this insane rig, and my name was literally on the monitor."

"I am completely positive he is using experimental tech to download my brain."

She went quiet. "Are you sure you didn't just see a project file?"

"Maggie, please. Just find the files."

"Okay. I will look. Just watch your back."

Hanging up, I made a solid decision. I was going to play the clueless victim today, but I was setting a lethal trap.

When I got to work, I took a deliberate detour past Erik's office.

He wasn't at his desk. His workspace was sterile, wiped completely clean.

The only personal item was a heavy, biometric briefcase.

I was just debating if I should risk touching it when a smooth voice echoed behind me.

"Looking for something, Rainey?"

I spun around, keeping my face perfectly neutral. "Oh, hey Erik. I brought over the weekly metrics, but I wasn't sure if I should just leave them on your chair."

He took the invisible "metrics" from my empty hand with a knowing, condescending smirk.

"Thanks. But maybe knock next time."

"Of course. Sorry for intruding." I turned to walk away.

"Hold on," he called out. "Sleep well last night? Have any... vivid dreams?"

My heart skipped a beat, but I forced a look of pure confusion.

"Not really. Slept like a rock. Why?"

"Just making conversation." That slick, fake smile made me want to punch him.

Back at my desk, I executed my plan.

I opened my code editor and created a massive file named "Core Algorithm Final Build". I stuffed it with thousands of lines of incredibly complex, totally useless garbage code.

I pretended to review it obsessively, waiting to see if he would take the bait.

At lunch, I faked a bathroom trip and looped past his glass office.

Sure enough, he was glued to his monitors, typing frantically with a disgustingly smug look on his face.

At three o'clock, our CEO, Mr. Harrison, called the engineering heads into the boardroom.

Erik sat at the right hand of the boss, practically glowing with confidence. He shot me a smug glance across the table.

"Alright team," Mr. Harrison started. "We pitch the algorithm prototype to the venture capitalists next week."

"Erik, where do we stand?"

Erik stood up, buttoning his suit jacket, and projected his laptop to the big screen.

"We are in perfect shape. I just finished optimizing the final core logic, and the efficiency metrics are blowing our projections out of the water."

He began flipping through a deck of complex diagrams and data sets. It was word-for-word the garbage data I had planted in my fake file that morning.

I clenched my fists under the mahogany table.

He took the bait.

The second the meeting wrapped, I texted Maggie. "Massive breakthrough. Meet me after work."

She replied instantly. "I have something huge too. See you at six."

At seven, Maggie drove us to a run-down diner on the edge of town, making sure nobody from the office could track us.

"I pulled some serious strings," she said, sliding a thick manila folder across the sticky table. "His MIT project was called 'Cognitive Extraction and Transfer Protocols'. The university shut it down three years ago for severe ethical violations."

"His lead professor testified that the tech violated basic human rights and had terrifying potential for corporate espionage."

"I knew it!" I flipped through the classified documents, my pulse racing. "He is using that exact tech to strip-mine my brain!"

"It gets worse." Maggie pointed at a redacted NDA form.

"His last employer? Horizon Dynamics. Our biggest market rival."

I sucked in a sharp breath. "He is a corporate rat."

"Exactly. I talked to my industry contacts. Horizon has been trying to launch a predictive model just like ours."

"But their backend is years behind us. If he steals your technical knowledge..."

"He hands them the keys to crush us," I finished her sentence.

"And the dead-end project I am on right now? It actually houses the foundational architecture for our entire ecosystem."

"We have to take this to Mr. Harrison."

I shook my head. "Without hard proof, Harrison will laugh us out of the room. He thinks Erik walks on water."

"Then what do we do?"

I stared at my cold coffee. "I have a plan."

"If he wants to dig around in my head, I am going to serve him something incredibly toxic."